not happy at all that someone is videoing other people falling on known patches of ice. If someone ends up with a hospital bill or worse, I wonder if there is any type of legal recourse? Like a good samaritan law or something?

Oh, lord, not this conversation again. Many of them are filmed from upper story windows. And even if there were easy access, running onto an icy street toward an out of control car is a VERY BAD IDEA. As to the pedestrians, what would be accomplished by charging at someone who’s flailing around on a patch of ice? At least the video can be used as evidence if necessary.

This, like the classic “too low bridge” video give me such pleasure, while simultaneously trying to feel sorry for the poor victims. Mostly the cars, I can’t really get into the ones where people actually hit their heads or look like they may be hurt.

All those people locking up their brakes on ice, and trying to steer against the way they’re sliding… I always assume these are culled from places that don’t usually see much snow or ice.

I was just thinking that. I’ve never accidentally slipped on ice in my car, but it seems like since the coefficient of static friction for a given surface is usually significantly higher than that of kinetic friction, then not locking your brakes should help you maintain better control.

I once slid three blocks down Beacon Hill. Fortunately, it was about three in the morning and there was no traffic. In that weather, I would wear so many layers of clothing, you’d have to drop me a lot farther than that to cause an injury. Plus, I was relaxed from being drugged out of my mind.

Ugh… broke my wrist last winter by falling on ice while skating. I now suffer from a touch of PTSD and have flashbacks when watching other people slip and fall in the same manner. I did enjoy the cars gracefully sliding by, though.

I tellya Mark, this stuff here is why I’ll never move out of Southern California. I lived in northwestern Montana for six months when I was 10, enjoyed a nasty concussion from a slip-n-spill at school. I worked on two TV miniseries in cold environments, one in Estes Park, CO, the other in Salt Lake City and Provo, UT. That was enough for me.

I like to play in snow, but I’ll be damned if I ever actually live in such a place again. Give me smog, earthquakes, and triple-digit temperatures any day.

Yeah, I grew up in a small town in New England. Had to wait two hours for the school bus to come, clutching my belt onion to stay warm, before I could give up and go home. Snow is great when I see it in a movie.

Shhhhhhhh, hush up everyone, Antinous is going to tell us a story from back in the day…

Grampa: We can’t bust heads like we used to. But we have our ways. One trick is to tell stories that don’t go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m’shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you’d say. Now where was I… oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn’t get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones…

I wanted to reach out and smack every single one of those drivers, because they all did exactly the same thing. They locked up their breaks. Seriously, don’t do that. Each time they came around to have their face pointed the right way, I was hoping to see their wheels level out and let go of the breaks, but no, they just went around for another spin. If you are going to drive in the snow, learn to drive in the snow. Go find a nice big empty church parking lot and practice what to do if you car doesn’t stop when you hit the breaks.

I just can’t imagine living there. Never mind how good I myself might be at driving in the snow, just parking my car in the evening knowing it’s perfectly likely that some other goofball’s car (or truck or goddamned city bus) is eventually going to come skating by, bouncing merrily off everything in its path some icy night… that’s enough to keep me far away.

In a panic situation, it’s very hard to overcome the instinct to jam on the brakes (brakes, not breaks, BTW), in spite of whatever you have learned. I know, I’ve slid into the back of someone, where, if I had had a second to think about it, could have steered around them.

Watching the people fall was rather uncomfortable. I lived in Colorado for six years and fell once on my butt as I was going to work … just the memory of it makes my neck hurt. To make everything worse, I had to teach a few recitations that day and the combination of me being short and it being painful to raise my arms meant I could only write on the bottom half of the chalkboard.

For people moving to areas with snow, I would suggest looking into winter weather driving lessons. I have never done it (no car) but I had a friend who did. Someone took her out during the first snow and taught her how to drive in it using her own car.